Practical Internet of Things with JavaScript

ngrok the API engine

Before we go ahead and start working on the lambda service, we need to first expose our API engine to be available with a public URL, as in http://iotfwjs.com/api, so when the user asks the Alexa skill service a question or issues a command, the Alexa skill service can contact us via the lambda service.

So far, we have been using a local IP-based configuration to interact with the API engine, broker, web app, or Raspberry Pi. But, that doesn't work when we want, Alexa skill service to find us.

Hence, we are going to use a service named ngrok (https://ngrok.com/) to temporarily host our local code with a public URL that Amazon Alexa service can use to find us via lambda service.

To set up ngrok, please follow these steps: ...